We're Not Dressing
                                                     
Director: Norman Taurog
Year: 1934
Rating: 6.0
This is an example of why the studio system could be great. Even for a bit of fluff like this that is as frivolous as an ice cream at the park, they can put together a cast that 90-years later still makes your ears prick up at the names. And 90-years later still manages to make you smile. Because Paramount told them to show up, put together some songs and brought on a fine director. The film is only 74-minutes long and has 12 songs not leaving much time for a plot. So, they keep it simple. Rich girl, poor sailor, end up on an island together after a shipwreck and fall in love. Not quite Swept Away admittedly but for a moment it could have been. The stars were all near the beginning of their film career with more success ahead.  Carole Lombard, Bing Crosby, Ethel Merman, Ray Milland, George Burns and Gracie Allen all in this piffle of a musical comedy. And a bear whose name I didn't get.



They loved films about the wealthy back then. A Depression comedy. There were a lot of them in which the rich and poor are thrown together and they fall in love. Not such a popular conceit anymore. Lombard's character has so much money she could have fed a few hundred soup kitchens but instead is sailing around the world on her enormous yacht with a few friends - her drunk uncle (Leon Errol), two supposed Prince's who are looking for a rich wife (Ray Milland and Jay Henry) and her friend (Ethel Merman looking much more svelte than I have seen her before). She has enough men in their sailor suits to staff a battleship. One of them has to take care of her pet bear who likes to be sung to. This is of course Bing. He was a very successful singer at this point but still wobbly and wooden in his acting skills. The scene in which he and Lombard admit they love each other should be used as a promotion in how you can get better. For reasons unknown, they have Lombard with a hair style that makes it look like she has a sick puppy on her head. Fortunately, when the boat sinks, she loses the hair-do along with everything else.



After the boat sinks Bing, Carole, the two gigolos, Leon and Ethel make it to the deserted island - and the bear - where only Bing knows how to survive. Not exactly deserted as it turns out Burns and Allen are there doing their comedy shtick - Gracie has built a Moose Trap to catch a lion that is more complicated than nuclear power. Bing sings ten songs. Which are better than his acting, so be grateful. Anything that comes up and he has a song ready to go. Ethel gets to sing two. The director of this bauble is Norman Taurog - one of the least appreciated directors from the old days. The man is amazing. 186 director credits on IMDB. He was a studio director who could do every kind of film but not an auteur, so he never got the recognition he deserves. He started off directing comedy shorts starring Larry Semon in the silent era. Then Tom Edison, Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, Boys Town and later on a bunch of the Martin and Lewis films and finally became a favorite director of Elvis Presley. From Larry Semon in the 1920s to Elvis in the 1960s. Pretty Amazing.